We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chris Cander. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chris below.

Hi Chris, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The Young of Other Animals is my fifth published novel, and my most personal one to date. It follows the lives of Mayree and Paula, a mother and daughter drifting apart, separated by grief and more, after the death of Mayree’s husband. Mayree faces a future with no income, career, or social life. Paula, feeling abandoned by the father she loved, is left with only a bitter mother. When Paula reveals that she narrowly escaped a violent assault, Mayree’s initial reaction is dismissal and disbelief. But as details unfold, it’s clear that it was real and not just one random night gone horribly wrong―someone is out to destroy their lives. With each new threat from Paula’s assailant, harrowing family secrets reemerge that force the mother and daughter to confront the shared traumas of their pasts. Drawing on courage and hope, they must save the relationship they never realized they’d lost. Though this family drama explores some dark themes, it’s ultimately a story about the redemptive power of women’s relationships.

This novel was inspired by a violent attack I endured when I was nineteen. For many years, I refused to talk or even think about what had happened to me. But trauma stays with us, whether we acknowledge it or not. Gradually, I began to use that story as a scaffolding for the women’s self-defense courses I teach, and got to the point where I could talk about it almost casually, as if it had happened to someone else. Then, in May 2021, when my daughter was the exact same age I was back then, I decided I was ready to fully externalize the awful memory I’d been carrying around for three decades. In that moment, Paula Baker was born.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a writer and a fighter.

As a child, I wrote poems. Stories in my teens and early twenties. Non-fiction during my thirties. When I started my first novel, at age 37, I realized that was where I wanted to focus my literary energy. Since then, I’ve written over a million words in various drafts, and have kept about a third of them. Now I’m 54 and releasing The Young of Other Animals–the seventh novel I’ve written and fifth I’ve published.

I’ve been an athlete all my life. I swam competitively starting at age 9 through college. Later, I became a competitive bodybuilder and fitness athlete. I’ve studied various martial arts, eventually earning my fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo and a certification in Krav Maga-based tactical self-defense.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

My fiction is inspired by underdogs—the kinds of women and men that we tend to look past as we crane our necks in search of something or someone more dazzling. I’m compelled by their untold stories, their harbored secrets, their unfulfilled passions. Convention dictates that I shouldn’t do what my characters do, shouldn’t be as honest or wicked or reckless. But through them, I can be, and I can make them do wonderful, terrible things. Mechanics and superintendents and priests, musicians and housewives and hoarders—they hold their breath while I plot their obsessions. It helps me understand my own.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

What I’ve learned most about the publishing process is that without thick skin, ferocious determination, and a high tolerance for disappointment, it’s frustrating. Even with them it’s frustrating.

I wrote two novels before my debut, 11 Stories. My agent tried for almost a year to place the first one, but despite more than a dozen very complimentary rejections, nobody was willing to take a risk on it—or me. There were concerns about the fact that it was “quiet” and “dark” and that because it didn’t fit nicely in a marketing box, it would be difficult to “break it out in a big enough way in hardcover.” We put it aside so that she could shop around my second manuscript, Telling Ghost Stories.

We heard many of the same concerns about that one—quiet, dark—but then we were approached by a senior editor at a major house. She loved the book, but had some thoughts and wondered if I’d be willing to talk to her about them. She was excited and engaged and thoughtful, and by the time she asked if I’d be willing to take out the entire second half and continue the first half to its own conclusion, I was so thrilled at the prospect of working with her I’d have renamed my children if she’d asked me to. In three months, I’d completely reimagined the novel, written 250 new pages and changed the title to Whisper Hollow. My agent loved it, and the editor did, too—but not quite enough to buy it. And although it was “almost there” she didn’t feel good about having me continue to work on it if she couldn’t guarantee a contract.

We didn’t give up, though, and soon enough another editor at another major house wanted to know if I’d be willing to talk to her about some changes. I was and I did them and we were all happy and when I met with her in New York, she ended our meeting by saying that she hoped this was the beginning of a long and productive relationship. They passed a week later. Can you imagine? Twice I did custom rewrites for editors who hadn’t offered me a contract. Now imagine it one more time. And like the other two, she loved many things about the rewrite, but not enough to pull the trigger.

I could’ve given up then, but I didn’t—instead I dug in harder. I put the manuscript back together in a way that felt right to me and had my agent shop that final draft. Meanwhile, I self-published 11 Stories to wonderful acclaim. A week after my novel was chosen by Kirkus as one of the best works of fiction in 2014, I was offered a contract for Whisper Hollow.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chriscander.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriscander/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chris.cander/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriscander/

Image Credits
Paula N. Luu (headshot) all others credit to Chris Cander